It is just before dawn, and he beholds with awe four bright stars,--the Southern Cross,--which symbolize the four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance).
After contemplating these stars awhile, Dante, turning to the north to get his bearings, perceives Virgil has been joined in this ante-purgatorial region by Cato, who wonderingly inquires how they escaped "the eternal prison-house." Virgil's gesture and example have meantime forced Dante to his knees, so it is in this position that the Latin poet explains how a lady in heaven bade him rescue Dante--before it was too late--by guiding him through hell and showing him how sinners are cleansed in Purgatory.
The latter part of Virgil's task can, however, be accomplished only if Cato will allow them to enter the realm which he guards.

Moved by so eloquent a plea, Cato directs Virgil to wash all traces of tears and of infernal mirk from Dante's face, girdle him with a reed in token of humility, and then ascend the Mount of Purgatory,--formed of the earthy core ejected from Hades,--which he points out in the middle of a lake with reedy shores.
Leading his charge in the early dawn across a meadow, Virgil draws his hands first through the dewy grass and then over Dante's face, and, having thus removed all visible traces of the passage through Hades, takes him down to the shore to girdle him with a pliant reed, the emblem of humility.
_Canto II._ Against the whitening east they now behold a ghostly vessel advancing toward them, and when it approaches near enough they descry an angel standing at its prow, his outspread wings serving as sails.

While Dante again sinks upon his knees, he hears, faintly at first, the passengers in the boat singing the psalm "When Israel went out of Egypt." Making a sign of the cross upon each passenger's brow, the angel allows his charges to land, and vanishes at sunrise, just as the new-comers, turning to Virgil, humbly inquire the way to the mountain.
Virgil rejoins that he too is a recent arrival, although he and his companion travelled a far harder road than theirs.

His words making them aware of the fact that Dante is a living man, the spirits crowd around him, eager to touch him.

Among them he recognizes the musician Casella, his friend.